The same railways, but different psychologies

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway becomes a major event of world focus, and some Western media have sent reporters to take trains along the new rail route for field coverage.
However, we feel quite soured and saddened after reading some of these reports and commentaries from the Western media colleagues. The wheel of history has run into the 21st century, but the mentality of these people remained in those days over a century ago, still with doubts and some hostilities against China.
Why the railways, which had "worked wonders for industrialization in United States and brought "benefits for the people in India", would sabotage the "ethnical culture of Tibet."
More than a century ago, American President Abraham Lincoln signed the "Pacific Railroad Act", so that a railway linking coasts of the Pacific and the Atlantic became a reality. Even today, we can still read such high evaluations from textbooks and history books as the one that "railway has written down a new chapter in American history."
Last year, the "Guardian" newspaper from Britain spoke highly of Indian railways, noting that "in India, nothing can link up the whole country but rail route¡­ From a broader sense, railways gives India a sense of unity."
But in their eyes, nothing seems worthwhile for a new railway is built in China. A recent article in the New York Times is entitled "Last Stop Lhasa: Rail Links Ties Remote Tibet to China". But Tibetan and foreign critics say that "the railway benefits Han Chinese, China's dominant ethnic group, at the expense of Tibetan natives."
Likewise, the British Broadcast Company on its website said in the words of critics that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway built at a cost of 4.2 billion US dollars constituted part of Beijing's destruction of Tibetan culture.
As a mater of fact, railroads all over the globe are more or less the same, and they are featured by a line with two tracks. But the psychologies and eyesight of the people who look at these railways are different.
Some personages from the West have passed themselves off as those who are very much concerned with the development of Tibet for a long period of time. But, in fact, they only care for their own ideas politically and how to use the political ideology to appraise China's development, whereas the interest of the Tibetan people is merely the tool they use to realize the political aim.
In so doing, they have enabled us to see what is on their mind as well as the "objectivity" and "fairness" preached by the Western media.

Pictograms of Beijing Olympics unveiled

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) released the Pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on the occasion of the 2-year countdown to the opening of the Games. One of the basic image elements of the Olympics, the Olympic Games Pictograms are widely applied in areas such as Olympic directional instruction system, advertising and communications, landscape and environmental arrangement, TV broadcasting and souvenir designs. The Pictograms play an important role in identifying the Olympic sports as well as in Olympic marketing.
Named "the beauty of seal characters" and with strokes of seal characters as their basic form, the pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games integrate pictographic charm of inscriptions on bones and bronze objects in ancient China with simplified embodiment of modern graphics, making them easy to be recognized, remembered and used,. Skillfully using the effect of sharp contrast between the black and white colors which the typical Chinese traditional artistic form of rubbings have, the pictograms of the Beijing Olympic Games display distinct motion character, graceful aesthetic perception of movement and rich cultural connotations, thus arriving at the harmony and unity of form with conception.
The Beijing Olympics Pictograms comprise of 35 sport icons, namely those of athletics, rowing, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoe / kayak flatwater, canoe / kayak slalom, cycling, equestrian, fencing, football, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, weightlifting, handball, hockey, judo, wrestling, swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, water polo, modern pentathlon, softball, taekwondo, tennis, table tennis, shooting, archery, triathlon, sailing, volleyball and beach volleyball.
In March 2005, BOCOG invited four professional design institutes and organizations to the solicitation campaign of Pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The design based on "seal characters" by China Central Academy of Fine Arts and that on "string" by Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University were shortlisted after experts' appraisal.
A joint design working group between China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Academy of Arts and Design constantly improved and perfected the design in accordance with the suggestions of BOCOG and experts home and abroad.
In December 2005, BOCOG submitted the Beijing Olympic Pictograms to the 28 International Sports Federations (IFs) for approval, each of which endorsed the Pictograms in April 2006. And in June this year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted the set of the Pictograms.

Chinese defence minister elaborates on army-building methods

Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan Monday elaborated on the methods to enhance army-building, highlighting the mechanization and IT capabilities of the People's Liberation Army.
"We will adapt ourselves to the new trend in the conduct of war and fighting, address the actual need of the PLA to strengthen its mechanization and IT capabilities," Cao told a reception marking the PLA's 79th birthday, which falls on August 1.
He said the PLA will promote the transformation of military training from under mechanized conditions to that under IT conditions, and enhance the mission-executing capability.
It will also conduct strict and tough training under war conditions and establish a scientific system of military training under IT conditions.
Cao pledged to strengthen the upgrading of weaponry and equipment and vowed to master key and core defense technologies with independent intellectual property rights.
He vowed to develop modern logistics, enhance military capabilities while cutting costs and to run the army strictly and according to law.
"China is now in a key period of reform and development. This is also an important period of accelerating the enhancement of China's military capabilities," Cao said.
The PLA will redouble its efforts in building in an all-round way a "revolutionary, modern and regular army" and ensure that it can effectively handle crises, prevent war and maintain peace in any complex environment, Cao said